The Battle of the Barge scene in Return of the Jedi is one of the most celebrated. It provided a pivotal early moment in the film that set up the trajectory of Luke as a mature Jedi. Among the details about it is one that concerns how Boba Fett held his weapon in his encounter with Luke. If we watch closely, Boba positions his left hand in an unusual way as he attempts to fire at Luke. He may think he was trying to point the weapon, but his hand placement actually had to do with a well-executed stunt.
What Was Boba Doing with His Left Hand?
In the Barge fight scene, Boba jetpacked over to confront Luke. As Boba landed on the skiff, he pointed his weapon at Luke, and he appeared to be holding it strangely with his left hand on the stock. It’s a brief moment before Luke sliced his weapon two with a small explosion.
As we may know, Boba used an EE-3 carbine rifle, and he typically positioned his left hand closer toward the barrel. Yet, as we can see in the video and this image, Boba was not holding it that way on this occasion.
He seemed instead to be using a sideways fist pump to stabilize his blaster. That explanation coincides with the on-screen explanation, but behind the scenes, there is more to it.
A fan from the above forum gets us to realize that Boba was holding his left hand that way to help carry out the pyrotechnic special effect. The stuntman playing Boba needed to keep his hand in a position to reach “the activator switch and trigger” that “ejected the barrel” of his weapon and shot out sparks.
That’s a good basis for how the stunt for Boba’s sliced weapon explosion worked. The details are quite intriguing, starting with how this stunt was based on the idea that the weapon’s barrel would detach, instead of having Mark Hamill actually cut into it.
Boba’s prop blaster was different from the one he usually used. A fan in this forum provides a clear visual of the regular prop that had a metal barrel. It would have been much more difficult to blast off this barrel. The weapon used in the Battle of the Barge scene also had a pyrotechnic charge hidden inside its stock.
Hence, the stuntman (more on that below) could access the triggering mechanism with his left hand. The activated charge blew the barrel’s end off, complete with sparks shooting out. It certainly looked like Luke sliced the EE-3.
Who Were the Stunt Doubles for Boba, and Who Did This Stunt?
We may be familiar with Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. We may also know that Jason Wingreen provided the original voice of Boba before Temuera Morrison took over. Perhaps we’re not as familiar with the work of Dickey Beer and Glenn Randall, Jr.
Dickey Beer is credited with performing “some of the Boba Fett stunts from the Skiff into the Sarlacc.” Beer was also listed on a call sheet from April 1982 for the “complete fight sequence.” So, he probably did the stunt with Fett’s rifle, which was filmed near Yuma, Arizona.
Beer commented on his work for the movie in the below interview and conveyed how many of his action scenes were cut from the movie. It appears that in the early storyboards, Boba would have gotten a shot off and perhaps hit Chewbacca.
The other possibility is that Glenn Randall, Jr. did the stunt in question. Randall worked as stunt coordinator and stunt double for Bulloch in Yuma for Return. Yet, in the second interview below, Beer indicates, “I was doing the stunts only.” He also comments on the very scene we are discussing, specifying how it was he who did the scene with “the fighting on the skiff” and the “flying off the skiff” before Boba fell into the Sarlacc pit.
Based on this source, Beer did the weapon stunt. However, according to the below video, we have counter evidence. It mistakenly shows Glenn Randall, Jr. in the middle of a tribute to Jeremy Bulloch. This source also includes a segment with presumably Randall carrying out the stunt where the end of the weapon blows off.
Boba’s Left Hand
The strange placement of Boba’s left hand in the scene where he fights Luke thus has an interesting story behind it. Beer may have been the one who needed to access the triggering mechanism to pull this pyrotechnic stunt off. Or, Randall was actually the one who placed his hand over the stock to complete the scene.